A team of 21 European scientists is searching for barrels of nuclear waste in the Northeast Atlantic as part of the NODSSUM project. The barrels are likely lying at depths of 3,000 to 5,000 meters. The goal of the project is to reassess the consequences of ocean waste disposal and investigate the state of the ecosystem.
Supported by an autonomous diving robot named Ulyx, which can descend to depths of up to 6,000 meters, the team aims to locate the barrels and assess their impact. Ulyx is equipped with physical and chemical sensors, a camera for 3D images, and a sonar system for locating objects with sound.
"In the four weeks of the project, the team aims to search about 200 square kilometers in various zones," said co-project leader Javier Escartin from ENS Paris. He estimated that searching the entire area of their investigation would take years. "Every piece of information will be useful to better understand the system," Escartin added.
With the recordings from Ulyx, the scientists want to locate the individual barrels, assess their condition, and note their positions. Based on the robot's images, they will decide where to take water or animal samples. They also want to examine a reference area to compare the results later.
"The consequences the barrels could have? That's really unknown. We don't even know the basic ecosystem in the area very well," Escartin stated.
The search area is more than 1,000 kilometers west of La Rochelle in the Western European Basin of the Atlantic. The deep-sea plain is largely unexplored. It is currently unknown where exactly the barrels are located, whether they are alone or in groups, and whether they are still intact. It is estimated that at least 200,000 barrels of nuclear waste are in the Northeast Atlantic alone.
Between the 1950s and the 1980s, large quantities of nuclear waste were dumped into the oceans. With the beginnings of nuclear power in Europe, many countries faced the question of how to dispose of nuclear waste, according to Die Zeit. At that time, little was known about life in the world's oceans. The deep ocean, far from the coast and human activity, appeared to be a cheap and simple solution for nuclear waste disposal, especially in areas where the ocean was considered geologically stable. The disposal of nuclear waste in the ocean was only prohibited in 1993.
"Throwing nuclear waste into the oceans seems absurd from today's perspective."
"The barrels were designed to withstand the pressure at depth, but not to truly contain the radioactivity," said Patrick Chardon, the project leader of NODSSUM and an atomic physicist at the Clermont Auvergne Laboratory in Clermont-Ferrand. Chardon suspects that radioactivity may have been escaping from the containers for a long time. He estimated that for most nuclear waste dumped in the North Atlantic, the radioactivity will have almost disappeared after about 300 to 400 years. "Only about two percent of the nuclear waste has a significantly longer radiation duration," Chardon noted.
The researchers are focusing on the area where probably half of the nuclear waste ended up, and they are also interested in the surroundings of the waste, such as whether the radiation is blocked by sediments or what influence deep currents have. "In addition to the amount of radioactivity, the researchers are also interested in the environment of the waste."
After the four-week mission, the collected samples will go to laboratories in Europe. The scientists plan to set sail again to take samples more specifically. A precise date for the second expedition was not yet set. Escartin hopes that it will be next year, according to Die Zeit.
A scientist from the Thünen Institute of Fisheries Ecology in Bremerhaven is part of the research team. The exploration of the area will be of interest beyond the nuclear issue, from the perspective of marine geology, according to the marine geologist. They want to create a map of nuclear barrel finds and take samples of water, soil, and animals. The exploration aims to provide insights into the deep-sea ecosystem, which is unknown.
Switzerland disposed of a total of 5,321 tons of nuclear waste in the Northeast Atlantic until 1982.
Produced with the assistance of a news-analysis system.